Final Moments
by bentkitty100
Summary: Six months after Augustus's death, Hazel's lungs fail again, and she finds out that the cancer has spread almost everywhere in her body. She has less than a week to live. One-shot, not that there's anything more to be told. Rated T for safety, although if you're mature enough to read TFiOS, I don't really care how old you are.


Some scientist once said that when a normal person loses a loved one, he or she goes through five "Stages of Grief." Apparently, these Stages include Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. If you go through all of these feelings after someone you love dies, then congratulations! You're a normal human being. I don't honestly think this needs to be said, but, um, I'm _not _normal by any definition of the word. So when Augustus died, those "normal person" criteria didn't exactly fit. Take the "denial" and "bargaining" stages: When you're terminally ill, you don't really deny death, much less "bargain" with God or whatever to get a dead person back. Nothing like an incurable, fatal illness to teach you that "dead" actually and truly means d-e-a-d-gone-forever-dead. My five stages quickly turned into three stages. Thanks, cancer, for helping me cut a few corners.

That last stage, "acceptance," was a different story. Acceptance doesn't mean that you understand and realize that yes, the person is gone forever. You already cover that in the denial and bargaining stages. No, acceptance means you're okay with their death and can then proceed to move on. If anyone's ever told you that being terminally ill makes _that _easier, I have news for you: That person is a moron. Being terminally ill makes moving on from death _harder_, _especially_ if the person who died is also terminally ill, because you knew it was coming, you know how unfair it is, and at the end of the day, you know you're next.

Hence, the most prominent stage of grief in the Hazel Grace Loses Her Boyfriend Case: depression. Day after day, week after week, month after month, I was in a hole full of tears, shortness of breath (more so than usual), and other forms of crap. It sucked completely.

It had been six months. I was in that hole, crying over, well, Gus's death (what else?) and all of a sudden, my month-long-normal-depression shortness of breath turned into oh-my-god-my-lungs-are-failing shortness of breath. I couldn't even yell for my mom. I ran into the kitchen, clutching my throat, gasping for air. My chest felt as if it were about to explode. I could hardly see. All I could think was, _this is the end, this is the end, this is the end_, and then I blacked out.

_A day later..._

I wake up to the hospital-antiseptic smell I've known for years. White walls. Machines humming. IVs hooked up to practically every part of my body not inside my perfectly clean pale blue hospital gown, and some IVs inside the gown, too. There is a knock on the door.

"Come in," I say. My voice hardly sounds like my own. Dr. Maria walks in, and hugs me.

"Please don't," I say. "I'm in no mood for hugs."

"Hazel," she says. She has that I'm-about-to-deliver-bad-news face.

"What's the bad news?" I half-ask-half-demand. "Go on, tell me. Better I hear it now than when I'm too sick, or hell, _dead_, to hear you."

"Hazel..." She bursts into tears.

"This is the end."

"Yes," she sobs. "There's really nothing we can do. I know we've said that before, and you've had miracles, but this time, it's really the end. All this time that we've been keeping your lungs safe, the cancer's been spreading. It's basically everywhere inside of you, Hazel. I give you a week here in the hospital, tops. I'm sorry."

I knew it.

That night, I lie in my bed, contemplating things. _You're going to die in a week_, I tell myself. _A week. There's no turning back here. You are about to die. You are not going to see your next birthday. You aren't going to get married or have kids or grandkids. You are going to die in a week._ All of a sudden, I understand how Gus felt those last couple of days, weeks, months, _knowing_ it was coming. Realizing the pain he felt somehow makes his death easier to understand. And it makes things better. Not better enough. Not o- all right. But better. Thinking about all of this, I fall asleep the way I fell in love: slowly, and then all at once.

The next morning, Dr. Maria comes back into my room.

"No hugs," I say, before she says a word.

"No hugs. I promise."

"Well? Do you have something to say to me other than _Hazel, I'm so sorry_, blah blah blah? Or was that what you were planning on saying? Because if you were going to say that, I'd tell you to get the hell out of my room, because I don't need that crap."

"Actually, that wasn't at all what I was going to say."

"Um... then what were you going to say?"

"Hazel, I know I said a week, but starting like _now_, it's gonna get worse and worse for you. The longer you wait to die, the harder it'll be. You'd be better off dying today or tomorrow so you don't suffer."

"So, are you planning on pulling the switch on all of these IVs? That'll kill me."

"I could, but it'll be an insanely miserable death. Remember, one of these is your oxygen. If I pulled the plug, you'd choke to death. Not pleasant."

"Well, what other option do you have?"

She holds up another IV machine. "Hook you up to this. It's the stuff they use to put dogs down, but it's slower, more powerful, and it's approved for human use. Once I switch this thing on, you'll have ten minutes. At the end of that time, you'll fall asleep and not wake up."

"Isn't physician-assisted suicide illegal?"

"Yes, PAS is illegal, but there are a bunch of criteria that determine whether something is PAS or not. To be PAS, you would have had to ask me to kill you, and I would then have to say yes. But instead, your parents asked me to cut your life support, and I offered this alternative. The laws here state that this drug is a suitable alternative to cutting life support, and since not you but your parents asked, I can inject you without it being PAS. However, your parents did want me to ask you whether or not you wanted to die now or wait."

"Well, when you put it that way..." I grin a little bit. Finally, some control, some options. I can choose when to die. Oh, joy. "I need to think about it. I'll let you know later."

"All right then, Hazel. Push the button if you need me, okay?"

Crap. She said it. I nod, just hoping to get rid of her. She leaves. Three. Two. One.

I burst into tears.

After about five minutes of crying, I get to thinking. Should I die now or not? Dr. Maria has a point. If I wait, I'll suffer more. It'll just be delaying the inevitable, and I'll face the consequences. But if I do get injected, would that be like giving up? I don't want to look like I'm giving up. I'm not a quitter, and never have been. Hmm. Tough choice.

And then, a recollection comes to me, from some time long ago when I asked Augustus if he believed in an afterlife:

_"Yes, absolutely. Not like a heaven where you ride unicorns, play harps, and live in a mansion made of clouds. But yes, I've always believed in Something with a capital S. Always have."_

Maybe Gus was right. Maybe a Something is waiting for me when I die. A Something with stars and books and champagne and food, a Something where I wouldn't Have Cancer or have to worry about crappy lungs. And then I think, if that Something is real, then Gus is already there waiting for me, because our Somethings wouldn't be complete without each other. I should die now, I think, and then we'll be together sooner. I reach my hand towards the button and-

I stop myself. _Wait, Hazel_, I think to myself. _Just because you think there might be a utopian afterlife waiting for you doesn't mean you should die right now. What if Gus was wrong? What if there is no afterlife, no Something, and when you die, you'll be lost in some black oblivion forever? Is there any use throwing your life away if you don't know?_

It's true. There might not be any capital-S-Something waiting for me. But I'm about to die anyway, and the longer I wait, the more miserable a death I'll suffer. Something or not, I'd like to die with some tiny shred of dignity left. And, oddly, I'd like to be functional enough to realize the point where I die. If I wait, I may be so sick that I die without even knowing it. And I'd like to really say goodbye to the world and _know_ I was saying goodbye.

I push the button. Dr. Maria walks in.

"What's up, Hazel?" she asks.

"Bring my parents in here so I can say goodbye, and then hook me up. I'm ready."

After five minutes of tearful goodbyes, hugs, kisses, etc., Dr. Maria plugs in the IV.

"Remember, after I flick the switch, you'll have ten minutes. Technically, you could turn off the machine within those ten minutes, but you'd be heavily sedated and could potentially be a vegetable for a few days before you die. So really think right now, do you want to do this?"

I can't second-guess myself. Otherwise I'll be stuck in indecision forev- for a week.

"Yes," I say. "I'm ready."

She flicks the switch. A little digital clock turns on, counting down from ten minutes. "All right," she says. "Do you want anyone to stay with you? Me? Your parents?"

"No," I say. "I'd like to spend my last ten minutes alone." She nods, and she leads my parents out of the room. The door closes with a click.

The room is silent. Ten seconds pass. Twenty. Thirty. Forty. Fifty. A minute. Silence. Nothing. Another minute passes. Silence. Waiting. Another minute. Another. Silence. Five minutes to go until I die.

"You're not alone." I jump. My heart's racing. Who the heck is in my room?

"Who's there?" I call out. A figure appears in front of me. Mahogany hair. Watery blue eyes. Augustus Waters.

"Hazel Grace," he says. He sits next to me on the bed.

"Um... what are you doing in my hospital room?"

"It won't be your hospital room, nor will I be in it, in -" he looks at the clock "- four minutes and thirty-eight seconds."

"Well, it's my hospital room as of right now, and I still don't know why, or for that matter, how, you are in it. So I'd like an answer within the next -" I look at the clock "- three minutes and fifty-four seconds."

"I'm in your hospital room because, if I didn't come for you, in oh-for-God's-sake-I'm-not-gonna-bother-looking-at- the-freaking-clock amount of time, you'd have been dead, and in a dark oblivion forever."

"So, since somehow you did 'come for me,' what happens?"

"Instead of going to a dark oblivion forever, you'll come with me to my capital-S Something. It's absolutely amazing there. It's like my own private world, with almost everything I could possibly want. And better yet..." He rolls up his pants

"Holy crap," I whisper. He has two legs, real legs.

"Yep. No cancer, no fake limbs, no hurting or sick or anything. Nothing."

"God, that sounds awesome."

"It is," he says, grinning. "But it's been missing something."

"And that is?" I ask, sort of half kidding as I think I know the answer.

"You, Hazel Grace," he says. He gently smooths back my messy hair. "It hasn't been perfect without you."

I laugh. "Being dead totally made you super cheesy," I tease him.

"I was always cheesy," he replies in a matter of fact tone. "But my cheesiness only shows in very specific situations. This is one of them."

"Well then," I say. "If I need to come with you to make your death perfect, then by all means take me to this capital-S Something. I mean, it'll totally suck, and I'd _so_ rather be in a dark oblivion forever, but I'll do it for you."

"You will?" His face is full of mock disbelief.

"Anything for you, Augustus Waters."

"All right then, Hazel Grace." And then he breaks into an Official Augustus Waters Goofy Smile, which brings me to tears for the second or third time today, but this time, they're tears of joy because he's _here_, Augustus is here and he always will be. And then I know that I was right to have Dr. Maria hook me up to that IV, that if I had waited another minute, this perfect moment would have been delayed.

I look at the clock. Thirty seconds to go.

"Well, it's almost time," he says. "Ready for eternal awesomeness?" He stands up and reaches out his hand.

Twenty seconds to go. "Definitely ready." I grab his hand, and it's warm and strong and I feel the best I've felt in six months.

Ten seconds to go. He looks at me, still goofy-smiling, and he says what I had been hoping he would say all along. "Okay?" he asks.

"Okay," I say back, and all of a sudden, I'm not in my bed anymore; I'm zooming through the air at a million miles an hour, except it's not air; it's swirling colors and light and sound, taking me and Augustus Somewhere with a capital S, and you're not going to know what happens next, because like my favorite book, this story is going to end in the middle of a ––––

**Hey! Thanks for reading my TFiOS fanfic/epilogue, _Final_ _Moments_! Please review :)**

**Don't forget to be awesome (DFTBA!)**


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